Few Israelis Dispute Army Tactics in Unrest

Published: January 26, 1988

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A group of prominent American Jews met today with Defense Minister Rabin to criticize the policy he has described as ''might, power and beatings,'' which was instituted as a substitute for the use of lethal force. At least 38 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli Army gunfire in the protests that began last month.

''The current policy of force and beatings as it has been implemented on the ground is regarded by us as inhumane and simply unacceptable,'' the president of the American Jewish Congress, Theodore R. Mann, said at a news conference after the meeting. ''Moreover, on another level, its costs in terms of the loss of support for Israel is far, far too great.'' Wall Smeared With Blood

In a fashionable boutique this afternoon, a middle-aged saleswoman put down her sandwich as she read a story on the front page of The Jerusalem Post about a blood-spattered wall on a vacant lot in Ramallah, a town in the West Bank, where Israeli soldiers had been taking Palestinian youths to beat them.

''I can't eat my sandwich anymore,'' she burst out. ''This is like what was done in the camps.'' She seemed to be referring to the Nazi concentration camps of World War II. ''I can't eat anymore,'' she said.

Foreign journalists who went to the location described in The Jerusalem Post story today found a wall smeared with patches of blood and saw blood on the ground of the vacant lot just off Ramallah's main square.

Nearby was a taxi stand with a group of Palestinian drivers who said they had seen Israeli soldiers beating people against the wall for a week, the latest incident coming Sunday, after the army broke up demonstrators marching from the Roman Catholic Church of the Holy Family after mass. Embittered Soldiers

''We saw the soldiers grab a kid from the street near the vegetable market,'' said Abdel Hafiz, a 35-year-old cab driver. ''They tied his hands behind him and beat him all the way from the street to the wall. They pushed him up against the wall and then the soldiers, about six or seven of them, kicked him, punched him and smashed his head and body with their rifle butts.''

''The blood that is on the wall now is from the boy's head, his face and hands,'' Mr. Hafiz said.

The weekend edition of the Hebrew-language newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth carried interviews with soldiers serving in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In the interviews, they said their experience in the territories embittered them against Arabs and turned them politically to the right. Makes Them Bitter'

The writer of the article, Ron Ben-Yishai, noted the soldiers on visits home would talk to their families and friends, who would further influence their political views.

Their regimental commander was quoted saying that the troops felt ''humiliated; it makes them bitter,'' because they could not use full force against the taunting protesters. He said even reservists had become more hawkish during their service in the Gaza Strip.

''They come in here with a clear opinion: we are not beating, we are not shooting. But after what happens in Gaza, they are beating already. You should never see such beating.''

''I personally can't hit anyone,'' the officer said. ''It's hard for me. It's an absurd situation for a commander to give an order he himself can't carry out.

''Here you tell them to beat, and sometimes afterward you have to turn your back,'' the regimental commander said.